Dodgers Flex Financial Might, But Are They Spending Wisely?
A competitive balance tax payroll of $350 million is within sight.
Following their much-discussed March 1966 holdout, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale combined to give the Dodgers 40 wins, 81 starts, 596 2/3 innings, 494 strikeouts, 38 complete games, eight shutouts and an earned run average of 2.50. Drysdale earned $110,000 that season while Koufax pocketed $125,000 en route to his third Cy Young Award, an arthritic elbow and an early retirement at the age of 30.
In the span of 11 days last December, starting pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed Dodgers contracts worth $136,562,500 and $325,000,000, respectively. The two right-handers produced a combined 16 victories, 40 starts, 224 innings, 273 strikeouts, zero shutouts, zero complete games and a 3.29 ERA.
Granted, there are reasons aplenty to avoid comparisons between baseball eras separated by six decades, and reasons why it is unfair to compare men who were well on their way to Cooperstown prior to the season in question while the others had just arrived. And, of course, Glasnow made but $17.5 million in 2024, rather than the entire $136,562,500, and Yamamoto only $9,166,667, but you get the idea.
Dodgers Owner and Chairman Mark Walter coined the phrase “pitchers break,” and both of his prized right-handers did indeed break, succumbing to arm injuries in the very first year of their long-term contracts. Does that portend well for the combined 16 seasons remaining on their deals?
I don’t think so, but the Dodgers are World Series champions, and who am I to begrudge the spending of other people’s money? I’ll leave that to baseball’s other 29 clubs, who may cry foul if they so choose (if there were crying in baseball, anyway). Perhaps they’ll have a point if L.A. were ever to actually buy their way to a World Series championship. I don’t have the salary totals for the Dodgers’ first six world championships (1955, 1955, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1888) at my disposal, but I can tell you that the club did not lead the sport in player payroll in either of their other two (2020, 2024).
If I gained an appreciation for anything during my five years covering the Dodgers for Forbes Magazine, however, it’s the notion that ambitious management types will continue to saddle their organizations with awful contracts based almost entirely on past performance, throwing caution to the wind more often than not. Here is a story in which I explained how two front office chiefs threw $268.4 million of Guggenheim Baseball Management’s money straight into the Pacific Ocean, with very little to show for it. And that is in 2012-2016 dollars, remember. There has been a fair amount of salary inflation since that time.
The mention of Glasnow above was intentional. Is it logical to assume that the one-time Tommy John surgery patient who missed the final eight weeks of the 2024 season and all of the postseason with elbow soreness is going to approach the career-high 134 innings next year, much less ever again? Or that he is certain to avoid a second Tommy John? Or a recurrence of the balky back which sidelined him at midseason? The short answer? No. The long answer? Also no.
All that said, I wanted Blake Snell in Los Angeles, I think he’s worth the injury risk inherent in hurlers, and the five-year, $182 million with a present-day value of $150.336,000 is right in line with what I suggested was necessary to sign him three weeks ago. I expect the two-time Cy Young Award winner to be every bit the ace Andrew Friedman acquired him to be, while competing for another such award almost immediately.
In contrast, I see Tommy Edman’s five-year $75 million contract extension, announced this past weekend, as a wholly unnecessary exercise akin to spending money just because it exists. To be clear, I like the player, and suggested a trade for him on more than one occasion prior to his acquisition. But there were no parties clamoring to pay the 30-year-old utilityman such a sum had he reached free agency a year from now as scheduled. Sure, Edman was a godsend in the 2024 postseason, winning the National League Championship Series MVP and hitting a glorious .328/.354/.508, with five doubles, three home runs and 13 RBIs in October. But he was under contract for 2025 at a reasonable $9.5 million and allowing him to play for his next contract was the wiser course. Re-signing actual free agents Teoscar Hernandez, Kiké Hernandez, Walker Buehler and Blake Treinen — postseason heroes all — was the wiser course.
Perhaps we can chalk the 2024 regular season slash line of .237/.294/.417, and the concerning .181/.256/.267 mark versus right-handers, up to an August start after wrist and ankle injuries kept him on the injured list the first four months. But Edman doesn’t have great on base skills generally (.317 vs. all comers lifetime), he doesn’t slug (.408 lifetime) and the pedestrian numbers opposite righties is nothing new (.256/.315/.375 lifetime). To give you an idea, Gavin Lux is a .264/.337/.408 hitter vs. RHP in his career and he managed a similar figure this past season (.262/.332/.407). Have the Dodgers just given a Chris Taylor-like contract to a platoon hitter, and a weak-side platoon hitter at that? More will be revealed, but I’m confident in the belief that the team would have been better off watching a full season of at bats before committing further. As opposed to bidding against themselves, which is essentially what happened. Cue the Dave Goltz/Don Stanhouse fiasco of 1980, please. Apologies for dredging up that one. And for comparing eras again.
While the estimates vary depending on the source, Los Angeles is looking at a 2025 competitive balance tax payroll of approximately $300 million as of this morning. That does not include prospective salaries for either Hernandez, Buehler and Treinen, for their potential replacements, or for Clayton Kershaw (who is likely to make his return official in February). And it most certainly does not include some $45 million or more for one Juan Soto. All of the above is with the infamous deferrals figured in. Those bills will come due some years in the future.
And as I’ve said, I will gladly pay an extra 50 cents for a Dodger Dog; a buck if they actually cook the thing all the way through.
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(Dodger) Bluesky:
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Tweets of the Week:
Media Savvy:
Anthony Castrovince chimes in with his annual “All-Awardless” team at MLB.com.
Former Dodgers assistant general manager and former Marlins general manager Kim Ng has taken her love of the game, and her talents, to softball. And to Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) in particular. “Major League Baseball for softball,” she calls it. Noah Furtado has the story at the Athletic.
Find a ranking of MLB’s worst current contracts, by Cody Stavenhagen at the Athletic here. The Boys in Blue are not featured. This time.
With the Classic Baseball Era Committee for the Hall of Fame election scheduled to take place at the Winter Meeting December 8, and the regular HOF results to be announced in January, we turn as we often do to the Athletic’s Jayson Stark, and “Five things to watch on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot: How can Ichiro not be unanimous?”
And speaking of Hall of Famers, below is Brooklyn’s Red Barber calling the Dodgers walkoff win over the Yankees in Game 3 of the 1947 World Series. I first heard the recording at an Oldtimers Game at Dodger Stadium in the early 1970s and can recall it word for word. For more on Cookie Lavagetto’s double which broke up Bill Bevens’ no-hitter, find Thomas J. Brown Jr.’s story at SABR.org here.
Baseball Photos of the Week:
Hall of Famer Ken Griffey, Jr.
Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.
Hall of Famer Hank Aaron.
Hall of Famer Rod Carew.
Hall of Famer Stan Musial.
Hall of Famers Satchel Paige and Tom Seaver.
Possible future Hall of Famer Dave Parker.
And remember, glove conquers all.
Howard Cole has been writing about baseball on the internet since Y2K. Follow him on Bluesky. And Twitter. Read OBHC online here.
Goltz sucked…and I remember Cosell interviewing Stanhouse on MNF when he came here….they were a big waste.
Ya gotta have pitchers and breaking them is what happens when everyone is going full effort velo and spin. We need 1 more top shelf starter, if possible, and I'm hoping for a guy like Buehler.
Happy Holidays, Howard! Looking forward to the winter meetings getting started.